CENT: Center for Emerging Network Technologies

CENT is an initiative to research how interoperable systems and technologies are converging to provide solutions for industries and economies. The Center’s goal is to create a culture of knowledge management through experiential learning.

Through interdisciplinary and applied research, CENT teams focus on the management and use of networks and communication and relevant public policy and industrial organization issues. The space provides a platform for faculty research on digital transformation and networking; a hub for experiential learning for graduate and advanced undergraduate student teams; and a mutually beneficial learning interface between the networking technology industries and the iSchool.

Associate Professor Carlos Caicedo in the CENT lab.

PROJECTS INCLUDE:

Internet of Things (IoT) Testbed CENT’s IoT testbed setup started in the Fall 2017 semester to provide infrastructure for experiential learning and research for IoT. The IoT management and data processing cluster was set up as an aggregate set of containerized applications for data analysis, storage and visualization. Its principal components include: l Several connectivity options for sensor and systems (wired Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and LoRaWAN) l Machine-to-machine communication with a focus on MQTT l A storage and processing cluster leveraging ThingsBoard l An ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana).

The connectivity infrastructure includes a dedicated IoT SSID available in Hinds Hall, two LoRaWAN gateways, one located in Hinds Hall and the other on top of a 20-story building in downtown Syracuse, and a core network in the CENT lab on the second floor of Hinds Hall.

The LoRaWAN infrastructure covers all of metro Syracuse and most of the Syracuse University campus. The testbed working group is presently working on detailed coverage mapping and initial sensor deployment.

The LoRaWAN gateways are part of “The Things Network” (https://www. thethingsnetwork.org/) and provide capabilities to capture data from sensors across Syracuse University, the city of Syracuse and beyond, given the deployment of Things Network gateways in many U.S. and international cities. Several Raspberry Pi 3 nodes with a customized sensor board are being deployed in the School’s Hinds Hall building, enabling the building to act as a “living lab” for IoT projects. The data captured by these nodes goes to the data processing cluster. Beyond its use in IoT experiments, the data can be used in several courses at the iSchool related to data analytics and visualization.

The flexibility built into the cluster allows CENT faculty and students to deploy and test different tools to interact with the captured data. They also can explore the use of different cloud-based services to facilitate interactions with the sensing nodes and the analysis of the data.

Speak EZ (Unified Communications) The Speak EZ project is an outgrowth of CENT’s earlier commitments to conduct research involving unified communications systems, such as technologies that integrate voice, data and video in communication systems and Voice-Over-Internet Protocol services. The project incorporated student work developing a mobile system to assist one of Syracuse’s largest refugee communities. The Burmese Karen were identified in community needs studies as being able to benefit greatly from a “one-stop” resource and service center to help them communicate and obtain information for successful resettlement. Given their situation of limited English literacy and difficulties accessing transportation, the idea of using a nearly ubiquitous technology—a mobile phone—seemed the best way to help. Using an open source interactive voice response (IVR) platform, a system called “SpeakEZ” was launched with a 2015 award of a $35,000 Media Innovation grant from the Knight Foundation Prototype Fund. The funds were awarded to Associate Professor Murali Venkatesh as lead investigator.

Based in the CENT lab, a team of students took on the task, first conducting field assessments and by 2016, creating a prototype. They moved the project forward with large-scale field tests and refinements early in 2017 and later in the year, conducted a fullfledged system deployment. The project concluded in 2017.

Spectrum Consumption Model Builder and Analysis Tool (SCMBAT) The Spectrum Consumption Model Builder and Analysis Tool (SCMBAT) facilitates the construction of Spectrum Consumption Models (SCMs) and the analysis of compatibility (i.e. non-interference) between transmitters and receivers for which an SCM describes their boundaries of spectrum use. Overall, SCMBAT aims to incentivize the use of SCMs, uncover the potential benefits of their use, collect feedback for their improvement and contribute to the development of spectrum sharing techniques.

The structure of SCMs and the mechanisms to determine non-interfering use of spectrum when devices express their spectrum use boundaries via SCMs are defined in the IEEE Standard 1900.5.2, elaborated by the IEEE 1900.5 Working Group on Policy Language and Architectures for Managing Cognitive Radio for Dynamic Spectrum Access Applications. CENT Director Carlos Caicedo has been a member of the group since 2012 and was elected as the secretary for the working group developing the IEEE standards in 2017.

The initial version of this open-source tool was released in 2016. In 2017, CENT researchers worked on continued development of standards, working to release and updated version of the tool and final version of the standard in December.

Multi-Agent Simulation for UAV Air Traffic Planning and Management This project is building a simulator environment to study UAV air traffic planning and communication resource management. The simulator provides several options to define parameters such as: launch rate of UAVs, locations of UAV launch and landing sites, type of missions to be carried out by UAVs (such as package delivery and monitoring), configurable no-fly zones, terrain/landscape information, communication channel characteristics and communication infrastructure characteristics.

Development of the tool involves faculty from the iSchool and students and faculty from the College of Engineering and Computer Science working along with a major company of the air traffic management sector. (See article on page 8.)

Network Security As an expansion of its original mission, CENT hosts a network security testbed for students interested in working in that field. The testbed also provides significant support for the School’s cybersecurity student competition team, which uses the facility for training and learning exercises. The students conduct experiments demonstrating information security vulnerabilities and they test and evaluate IT security products and technologies. Research efforts enhance the evolving information security curriculum of the iSchool.

Past research areas have included: Managing a network using SNMPv3, implementation of a WAN emulator, configuration of a SIP Trunk, IPv6 security vulnerabilities, wireless communications – 802.11n AP performance, network lab virtualization, Internet governance issues. CENT’s director is Carlos Caicedo, associate professor.